The Cage
Season 2024 Episode 1 | 5m 16sVideo has Closed Captions
Artist Jack Powers builds a jail cell out of scrap wood at a California sculpture garden.
Jack Powers spent two decades in solitary confinement. A self-trained artist, his most recent project is a nine-by-seven-foot recreation of his cell. Jack hopes the visceral experience will make solitary confinement less abstract and more tangible for audiences.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Box Burners is a local public television program presented by WLIW PBS
The Cage
Season 2024 Episode 1 | 5m 16sVideo has Closed Captions
Jack Powers spent two decades in solitary confinement. A self-trained artist, his most recent project is a nine-by-seven-foot recreation of his cell. Jack hopes the visceral experience will make solitary confinement less abstract and more tangible for audiences.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship[ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ Powers: I can't say how many times... ♪♪ In my mind... ♪♪ ...that's what I was... that's what I was seeing.
In reality, it was just a... brick and concrete wall.
But...
In my mind, it was just as beautiful.
Just as lovely as this.
♪♪ I got to get all those nails out.
In my mind, having had all of those many years of being in a cage, it has to count for something.
It has to mean something.
There has to be a purpose behind it.
Otherwise, what am I doing?
What is my life about?
I ended up going to federal prison when I was 25 years old.
It was almost 33 years altogether I was in a cage.
While I was in solitary confinement, I began to work on a lot of creative projects.
I did a lot of drawing, reading.
I taught myself English composition.
Later, I became a writer.
♪♪ ♪♪ What about right...here?
Bang.
Just like that.
♪♪ I think art gave me a way, a creative way, to express myself and to experience more than I would have otherwise within that cage.
Somehow we have to get our heads around this whole thing that we're calling crime and punishment in the United States of America.
We have to.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
This is nice.
Oh, those guys feel like they're in heaven.
Look at that.
All that open space.
I want people who've never been in a cage to realize a little bit of what it's like so that there can be a rational relationship between the crime and the punishment.
I was a criminal.
There's no question about it.
No doubt about it.
Yeah, I stole, I robbed.
Did I deserve to be arrested and stopped from criminal activity?
Yes.
Did I deserve to be kept in a cage for almost 33 years of my life?
I would have to say no.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Ahh.
It didn't hit me until I grabbed the bars, right?
♪♪ There were times when I could look out.
It was usually some kind of angle like this, too.
And I could see the sun... or maybe the moon.
I don't think cages are made for humans.
I don't think humans are made for cages.
Let's put it like that.
Cages aren't made for humans, yes, but humans are not made for cages.
♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
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Box Burners is a local public television program presented by WLIW PBS